What is the Mycroft Project?

The Mycroft Project is a collection of over 23 thousand OpenSearch & Sherlock Search Engine Plugins
for your internet browser.OpenSearch is supported by
Firefox,
IE and
Chrome. Sherlock is supported by
Firefox,
and other Mozilla-based browsers.

The name Mycroft refers to Mycroft Holmes, the brother of Sherlock Holmes in the novels of
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Mycroft Project originates from Apple's Sherlock software.

What is a Search Engine Plugin?

A search engine plugin allows you to access a search engine directly from your browser.
In Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer you use the search bar at the top right.
Microsoft appears to prefer the term Search Provider but there is no difference in function.
There are also tools to add search capability to right click menus and other locations.